Time to start treating technology as a major school subject
1 min read
Chancellor George Osborne said, in last week's budget, that he wants the words 'Made in Britain, Created in Britain, Designed in Britain, Invented in Britain to drive our nation forward'. "That is how we will create jobs and support families," he said.
But the nation needs the appropriate skills to be in place to underpin that vision; and that's something which has been discussed widely over the last few years. There is general agreement that not enough engineers are being produced and that part of the solution is to provide more exposure to technology for school students. Yet Design and Technology – or D&T – competes with many other topics for the limited space available in the curriculum at primary and secondary schools; often coming off second best. A further complication is the fact that cookery – an entirely appropriate subject to be taught in schools – is classified as D&T.
A recent Ofsted survey has found that one third of secondary schools make too little use of electronics and control technology when teaching D&T at Key Stage 3. The result? Low take up of electronics and similar subjects at GCSE. And the survey found the number of 16 year olds who chose to enter D&T GCSE examinations fell over the three years of the survey at the rate of approximately 20,000 students each year
The survey also found the D&T curriculum in schools is failing to keep up with developments. The report says 'The challenge to keep the curriculum up to date and exciting is vital if the potential of D&T to help all pupils become confident and capable members of a technologically advanced society is to be realised'.
Take up of GCSE courses in electronics and systems and control has been low, 'due mainly to the lack of relevant expertise among teachers'. The report cites a national programme to update knowledge of electronics amongst teachers, but says this programme is 'insufficient to bring about the systemic change needed to tackle this entrenched problem'.
The Ofsted report calls on the Government to ensure that D&T in its widest sense – but electronics, systems and control in particular – gets a fair shake of the stick.
Everyone seems to agree the future for the UK economy is based on developing technical skills amongst school students and on encouraging them to become engineers, yet we continue to wrestle with how to create the environment in which this can be accomplished.
Changing the education system is a massive undertaking, but it is something which needs to be done sooner, rather than later. The nettle needs to be grasped now.
